County Workers Union Threatens More Walkouts

As contract negotiations continued Friday, the county’s biggest employees union threatened to hold several potentially damaging walkouts next week--including a second nurses strike, an open-ended walkout by 5,100 social service workers and a one-day general strike by all 41,000 union members.

County officials immediately denounced the plan. “It is a knife to our throats in the process of bargaining,” said Elliot Marcus, county director of labor relations, adding that the union would be withholding services from the county’s poorest and most sickly citizens. “That’s just unconscionable.”

Leaders of Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union made their strategy public as radio dispatchers, fingerprint analysts and other civilian employees of the Sheriff’s Department walked off the job in the latest in a series of one-day “rolling thunder” strikes that have affected several county agencies.

Estimates differed wildly on the number of Sheriff’s Department employees who stayed away from work Friday and on the effect of the mini-strike.

Local 660 officials said 200 workers stayed out on the first shift.

But county officials reported no major disruptions, saying they counted only 17 unexplained absences in units that have a high percentage of civilian workers. “It’s having absolutely no effect on our operations,” said Deputy Pat Hunter.

Meanwhile, negotiations moved forward Friday at two separate bargaining tables.

At union headquarters in Los Angeles, the two sides attempted to negotiate a fringe benefits package for all members of Local 660. Negotiations broke off at about 4:30 p.m. Friday and are expected to resume at 11 a.m. today.

At Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, the parties sought agreement on a contract for county nurses, who staged a two-day strike this week before a judge ordered them back to work.

“We’re not thrilled by the progress,” said union spokesman Steve Weingarten. “But talks are going on and that’s always good.”

Talks on the nurses’ contract are scheduled to continue through the weekend. The nurses are seeking an immediate 10% wage hike, while the county has offered 5.5%. The nurses have voted to walk off the job Monday night if an agreement has not been reached by then, said Weingarten.

Such a walkout would be the nurses’ second. On Tuesday and Wednesday, they staged a strike that shut down emergency rooms and trauma centers across the county. Nurses went back to work Thursday after a Superior Court judge ordered an end to the walkout.

On Monday, 5,100 employees who determine welfare eligibility for the Department of Public Social Services are scheduled to begin an open-ended strike at 18 DPSS offices. DPSS spokeswoman Carol Matsui said the agency is bracing for a walkout and expects to handle any shortage by using supervisors to do the work of the strikers.

However, she acknowledged that if the strike lasts more than a day or two, the agency may have trouble serving its clients, who include the county’s neediest residents. “We’re just going to take it one day at a time,” she said.

On Tuesday, Local 660 is planning a general strike and is asking all 41,000 of its members to pack the meeting of the county Board of Supervisors. Weingarten said he wants union members to tell the board “very clearly, very dramatically, very loudly, that . . . we want a contract.”